Baby, Please Don't Go- LCD Soundsytem & SUAPTH

Panda or Dog?



Just watched the film Shut Up And Play The Hits 3 times on On Demand cable. I love LCD Soundsystem, and the movie definitely increased my love for Reggie Watts, and also piqued my interest in French Bull Dogs, but I'm having a hard time understanding James Murphy's rationale for ending the band. A band is not like a TV series- Breaking Bad, for example, where you know the end is lurking around the corner, and that knowledge informs not only your viewing, but the writer's process as well, as he works his way through to that end. It's a forgone conclusion that it ain't gonna last forever. (Unless it's SNL apparently, for better or worse).

Bands don't last forever either, but there's usually a reprieve of some sort, in the form of new alliances built on the foundation of the old, a sad but obligatory reunion tour, never-ending releases of "rare B-side material and outtakes". OK, perhaps in that sentence alone I've found the justification that I didn't get from the film. Go out at the top of your game, maintain your untarnished legacy, never get old, become redundant or god forbid, obsolete. Plausible yes, but in this instance, was the timing right?

Given the fact that there are legions of folks toiling away at the music biz for little or no reward, or at any creative endeavor for that matter, who would kill for even a modicum of LCD's success, I can't help but wonder, besides concern for the state of one's liver, or the increasing amount of gray in one's hair after each tour, (as Murphy posits in the film) what would make someone who had reached that level of creative fulfillment walk away at that particular moment? I longed for a little more disclosure regarding his decision. Perhaps at the time of filming he was still too close to the event to have sorted it out completely for himself, and maybe I missed a defining interview conducted at a later date, but it's just so flippin' weird. "Say Hello, Wave Good-bye" indeed, I thought as the credits rolled over Soft Cell's world- weary ode to a failed relationship.

Nevertheless, the movie was a superb chronicle of an amazing send-off. The cinematography and tight, yet fluid editing of the concert footage manages to convey what I sensed was a fairly accurate depiction of what both the attendees and participants experienced that night, along with a glimpse of the bittersweet emotional toll it took as the show moved towards its conclusion. In the best Irish tradition, the solemnity of a wake is always leavened with humor, however dark and possibly booz-infused it might be. And so we got our LCD-style graveside moment at the end, watching a concert-goer glimpsed earlier with his similarly-dressed exuberant friends, now alone and wiping away the tears with a soggy paw as they flowed over the fur of his white panda/dog costume.